India / Congratulations Modi ji: Sibal as India ranks 101 in Global Hunger Index

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal today hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the country's poor ranking in the Global Hunger Index. India has slipped to 101st position from its 2020 position of 94th, ranking way behind its neighbours, including Pakistan.

The Global Hunger Index report has termed the level of hunger in India "alarming".

On Twitter, the Congress leader posted a tweet mocking the claims of the government on eradicating poverty, hunger, and also on making Indian a global power.

Eighteen countries, including China, Brazil and Kuwait, shared the top rank with a score of less than five, according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) that tracks hunger and malnutrition.

In 2020, India was ranked 94th out of 107 countries. Now with 116 countries in the list, it has dropped to 101st rank. India's GHI score has also decelerated - from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.8 - 27.5 between 2012 and 2021.

Though neighbouring countries like Nepal (76), Bangladesh (76), Myanmar (71) and Pakistan (92) have fared better at feeding its citizens than India, these countries have been put under the 'alarming' hunger category, according to the report.

The share of wasting among children in India has also risen from 17.1 per cent between 1998-2002 to 17.3 per cent between 2016-2020, according to the report.

"People have been severely hit by COVID-19 and by pandemic related restrictions in India, the country with highest child wasting rate worldwide," the report said.

However, India has shown improvement in other indicators such as the under-5 mortality rate, prevalence of stunting among children and prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food, the report said.

The GHI score is calculated on four indicators -- undernourishment; child wasting (the share of children under the age of five who are wasted i.e who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition); child stunting (children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).